The three key focuses are to gain discrete GPU market share in 2016 and 2017 as well as win the next generation of consoles, which will likely be designed for 4K in mind. The current generation of consoles are somewhat under-powered for the 4K TV era even though they all are shipping with Advanced Micro Devices graphics that could support 4K out. This could be a huge opportunity for Advanced Micro Devices since there’s a good chance that console makers will continue to stick with Radeon IP for their next generation consoles and give Advanced Micro Devices an even bigger advantage in the gaming space. AMD’s architectural decisions in the past seem to finally be catching up with them with DirectX 12 in the latest shipping version of Windows as it gives Radeon GPUs a significant performance uplift versus DirectX 12 against NVIDIA. These successes may see future consoles stick with Advanced Micro Devices and give them another few quarters of nice profitability when/if the new consoles ship in a few years.

As a part of Advanced Micro Devices RTG’s investment in both consumer and professional graphics, the company is announcing a new graphics driver initiative. For one, AMD is killing the Catalyst driver brand altogether and is changing their driver names to “Radeon Software” with each annual update getting a new red color themed name. This upcoming driver version will be called “Crimson” and will feature different version numbers for each revision, with Advanced Micro Devices hoping to release at least one WHQL every two months with beta drivers in between. The new Radeon Software drivers will feature a simpler UX and improved aesthetics and are designed to be more user friendly. Advanced Micro Devices has done a very good job with their drivers as of late, with their support for
Microsoft Windows 10 and DirectX 12 working out of the gate and delivering the best possible performance. I have used AMD’s in Windows 10 and, outside of some Preview issues, have been very impressed with their drivers’ stability and performance in games. With these improvements and their latest Windows 10 drivers hopefully Advanced Micro Devices can overcome their reputation for having “bad drivers” which they had earned over the years, which really is no longer the case. Having such a reputation has hurt the perception of the brand in the past and impacted sales even when their products were the best. Advanced Micro Devices and RTG have spent a lot of time and resources to improve their drivers and it’s really starting to show, but they need to continue to keep making consumers aware of the improvements.

Lots of changes are coming for Advanced Micro Devices’ RTG this coming year and 2016 should be an extremely interesting year for graphics with new GPU architectures and process nodes. AMD’s RTG is a new organization that almost calls back to the ATi days, pre-Advanced Micro Devices acquisition, but with a new focus on today’s technologies and needs. For the industry’s sake, hopefully the company’s new organization will allow them to focus on bringing competition to NVIDIA while also working with more partners than they have in the past. If you caught NVIDIA’s latest earnings, they are on a roll. Again. Advanced Micro Devices’ RTG has a vision and a plan and they are already on the path towards potentially introducing some seriously competitive products into the market. It’s all about execution at this point.

Disclosure: My firm, Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or had provided research, analysis, advising, and/or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, including Advanced Micro Devices, Dell, HPE, HP Inc., NVIDIA, Microsoft, cited this article. No employees at the firm hold any equity positions with any companies cited in this column.